21 comments

Hey, I offered you guys free popcorn last week to encourage you to watch some local basketball talent but as far as I could see you were a no-show at the Bloomington South game.

As far as I’m concerned you have no right to judge Chad Sutor and the quality of his coaches if you don’t even have the courtesy to see him play. Like I said last week, he’s more skilled now than several of IU’s current players. The only improvement he would need to play college ball would be to gain a few pounds but that’s about it.

He’s an outstanding ball handler for a 6’7″ kid, he knows when to shoot and shoots well, he plays great in-your-face man-to-man defense and above all else he’s a smart player.

The H-T and the basketball fans of Bloomington should be ashamed of themselves for the lack of support for the local high school teams. South has been ranked all season and yet you don’t see the kind of coverage or encouragement this team deserves. Edgewood has had an outstanding season as well but unlike Bloomington, their town supports them tremendously.

It’s too bad the yuppies of Bloomington are too self-absorbed to support the local teams. South has one more home game on the schedule, it would be nice to see a sell-out crowd. There are some special kids who have played mulitple sports on this team and last year’s team and they deserve support.

Rex Kirts does a fine job of covering high school sports but EVERYONE who writes about basketball in this State, and this town, has an obligation to know what the local talent offers.

I was referring to a post I made last week under the heading “Wednesday’s Q&A 11:00”. The post was not answered and so it’s possible no one there read it.

I am upset because you are now the 2nd H-T sports reporter that has admitted he hasn’t seen Chad Sutor play this year. You have no business writing about ANY level of basketball if you don’t even know who the local talent is or anything about the local coaching staffs.

So, just maybe Matt, you should do your homework before you are critical of my posts!

Interesting quote Mark:
“You have no business writing about ANY level of basketball if you don’t even know who the local talent is or anything about the local coaching staffs”

Well well well…Mark,

Does this mean that Mike Wells, the Indiana Pacers beat writer from the Indy Star, has no business covering them if hasn’t watched some kids play high school ball in Indy? What on God’s green Earth does Chad Sutor have to do with INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL?

Why don’t you create a magazine of some kind that is devoted to Chad Sutor and his South Panther endeavors? Because quite frankly, a lot of people could care less, ESPECIALLY on a HOOSIER BLOG!

I wouldn’t doubt your statement that he is more skilled than a few current Hoosiers for a couple reasons. First, I’m assuming you’re including walk-ons, so he could be better than a couple of them perhaps. Second, just because someone is more ‘skilled’ doesn’t make them a better player. Suhr is more skilled than a number of players, but things like athleticism and height/weight hold him back.

Overall, Mark you need to come up with a better argument and stop harassing HT reporters for reasons that are ridiculous and borderline insane. Why don’t you call ESPN and see if they can pick up one of the Panther games? I’m sure that would draw ungodly ratings. By all means, this isn’t a knock on Sutor because he is a solid player…but he has absolutely nothing to do with IU basketball or HT coverage of Hoosier basketball.

Well Mitch you obviously have not read the previous posts I was referring to so I really don’t give a crap what you think.

My post had nothing to do with ESPN or the Pacers or any of that other crap you accused me of.

Apparently, you’ve never heard of Jared Jefferies, Eric Suhr, Rex Grossman, or other local talent that moved on from local high schools. The point is no sports reporter should be ignorant of the sport he covers, no matter what level. Eventually, the kid playing high school ball may move on to another level. If you have a team, like South, highly rated all year then you might want to know who in the heck is on the team!

If North had a great team I would say the same thing.

I’m not harrassing H-T reporters, I just want them to take what they do seriously. In fact, I think most of them do a great job.

Re: The idiot that does not like Rex Kirts, get over it. The H-T editiors decide which teams get covered and to what extent. It’s impossible to balance the coverage that pleases everyone. Some years North is good and they deserve extra coverage. Some years Edgewood is good (like this one) and they get extra coverage.

If you are a sports writer writing for a daily newspaper what does it matter which teams you cover? If Rex is as bad as you think he is then why has he been around for so long? So you think Rex is an idiot because he writes about high school sports rather than IU? Give me a break, the last time I checked this is a free country.

Really? We’re complaining about sports writers giving too much attention to the team they cover and not enough to those that are covered by someone else? Impressive amount of free time guys.

The South kid, as good as he may or may not be, isn’t an IU recruit. When he is, then I’m sure he’ll be on the IU blog. Until then, keep your fingers crossed for the Rex Kirts South Scoop blog (which, by the way, Kirts is a full-time HT beat writer for South and the rest of the high schools get part-timers to cover them… just wanted to point that out).

I loved his defense of his Rex Grossman is a blue-collar guy story this morning – quality stuff. I was particularly swayed to his point of view by the use of the words “ain’t” and “fella” – good stuff.

While I’m reading the “Rex is the hardest working man alive” piece, I kept thinking back to Rex’s recent post-Green Bay comments that he didn’t prepare for the Packers game because, hey, he didn’t think he’d play much, and he had that New Year’s Eve shin-dig to get ready for. Now that’s a blue collar approach for sure.

Since Rex Kirts thinks his recent story on Grossman showed how the Bears’ QB “defines” hard-working, I’d suggest the HT put him to work on his own personal Rex Kirts dictionary – complete with every jock-sniffing reference he’s made over the last umpteen million years.

Retire already, Rex!! Put us out of our misery!!

There is one good thing about Rex, though. Whenever someone thinks they’ve lost their command of the English language, you can always pick up the HT, read a Rex Kirts piece, and you’ll feel much better about yourself.

As for Mark – your comments are ridiculous and laughable. With that line of thinking, you shouldn’t be commenting on South without being well versed on Jackson Creek Middle School hoops, and Childs Elementary Hoops, and maybe even that golden nugget who’s being home schooled and only plays at the YMCA.

Mark, I know you weren’t talking about ESPN or the Pacers, correct me if I’m wrong, but I never said you were. I was simply illustrating how HORRIFIC your opinion was on the credibility of a reporter based on their knowledge of a local high school team, especially given the fact that their job is IU basketball coverage. And no I haven’t seen any of your earlier posts on this topic, and I’d prefer not to, given how idiotic and ridiculous your stance is on the one at hand.

After reading some of the other comments from other people, I think it’s pretty clear that you are wasting your time here. Maybe if Chad gets invited to walk-on for the Hoosiers then he will be covered by the Hoosier Scoop. Until then, stop chastizing people for not knowing anything about your favorite player or your son, whichever the case may be.

In the meantime, maybe I’ll catch one of the South games on BCAT. Have a pleasant day.

Mitch, you sound like one of those self-absorbed yuppies I was referring to. BCAT? Too lazy to actually attend a game?

Terry Hutchins (or whomever) you seem as stupid as your friend Mitch. Newspapers are filled with popular slang and other garbage and they are generally not considered serious reading material. Apparently you never understood this… Here’s your sign…

Here’s an excerpt from an article by Gene Wojciechowski — hope I spelled that correctly since he’s one of my favorites — about the Jordan brothers.

“Jeff, who is getting hard looks from mid-level Division I programs such as Loyola University, Davidson, Bowling Green, Illinois State and University of Illinois-Chicago, plays point and off guard. Marcus, considered the one with more long-term hoops potential, is a big guard/small forward. I don’t think either of them made a shot. I’m not even sure they tried more than one or two.”

I have recently been informed of this blog and I wanted to clarify some information that has been written about my son Chad..Although I appreciate the writer’s(Mark) concern for the lack of coverage of our local athletes I have always been a strong proponent of the fact that if you are “good enough” someone will always find you and I have told Chad that very same thing..So I just encourage him to work hard, keep a positive attitude, keep up your grades and good things will happen..
I am very proud of the effort that the South Panthers have showed this year and I believe that JR and his coaches have done a wonderful job mentoring and guiding our kids not always this year but their entire high school years….I assist coaching with the varsity football team and I take “mentoring” very serious, these kids are at ages where a high school coach or teacher can leave a wonderful mark on a young person…
I hope our kids can play well enough to go a long way into the state tournament this year because there is nothing more exciting than high school basketball in the state of Indiana during March…
I hope fans come out to support these kids because they have worked extremely hard for many years to put themselves into a position to contend for a state chamionship..
Go Panthers!!